Saku might not listen to me well at his agility class, but he certainly knows how to apply his agility skills on prison break!

Yesterday when we were away for lunch, Saku and Mina are left in their ex-pen as usual. When we came back, we have a smiley face greeting us by the door and trial of garbage in the house!

Saku not only jumped over the gate. He "opened" the bedroom door, sniffed out a bag of pretzel which is closed with a clip, "unclip" it and finished the whole bag (the bag is intact without any evidence of force)

He also fished out a bag of dog treat and finished it as well (with force...I guess he figured this belongs to him so he opened it in a shiba way).

I still don't know how he managed to open the door...the only way that's possible is to turn the door knob and I double checked the door before I left so I know it can't be pushed open.

Saku. My friend who has Shibas....her shibas can turn the Knobs on the doors. So I won't be surprised if yours can! :) though if possible would you like to record yours in action?!

Bootz is just as sneaky. When I work I give her access to my bedroom + hallway. But block off the stairs with a "Great wall of China". The last couple of times she was able to cross the wall...do damage in the living room...then return back to her place and pretend she did nothing. I am curious how she was able to do this....(planning on buying a webcam that can stream video online).

A word of warning... We have had two members whose Shibas were curious about bagged food (i.e. potato chips or pretzels)... Unfortunately, their curiosity got the best of them. Both dogs suffocated by sticking their head in a snack food bag to lick the food.

Since your pup has demonstrated his ability to ninja out the of ex-pen and grab bags of snacks, you might want to think about crating him instead. It is definitely safer.

Casey, with Bella and Nola, hanging out in the mountains of Virginia.I Wander, I Ride

I second Sunyata. Stories like that are why my husband and I have decided to persist in Zim's crate training despite his fervent hatred of it. I don't think I could take finding my baby on the floor suffocated with his head in a bag as has happened to some members.

ahahaha brewster has learned to jump as well, we used to leave in with a 4 foot tall gate which gave him a pen in my hallway for when we went out to dinner or movie or shopping,long story short was that thing worked till he was about 5 1/2 mos. old and he discovered he can jup over it...lucky for us he is content to play with only his toys and lay on the couch while we are gone :) start doin trust excersises with them so you can let him have the run of the house but not all the shiba toyslike paper and bags and shoes :) best of luck

@sunyata. That is sad to hear. Must be devastating to come home to something like that. Long story short, after a chocolate incident, we puppy proof the WHOLE house even if they are confined to one area. Food has to be in cabinets, sealed containers or behind closed doors.

Although off topic but I thought was cute. There has been TWO incidents where food was accidentally left out. I heard a bunch of barking from Jackie AND Bootz (which is not common) and came to find Jackie standing in front of the food guarding it from Bootz, who was trying to eat it. It was surprising to see since Jackie is 5 lbs and Bootz is 22 lbs.

Just so people know to pay close attention to their Shiba's abilities when deciding whether or not they should be crated during different parts of the day. I would never have thought poor Moto would have been able to get to that chip bag, but he did. Scary stuff.

I have read the story before and it was so heartbroken I remembered it vividly and would never wish it to happen to anyone.

We are always very cautious about leaving them alone at home, that's why I always close the door and double check before I leave. What Saku did was really a surprise to me and that's something we didn't anticipate it before. I really want to set up a webcam to see how he did it! If he can open the door by the knob...he could probably open the cabinet if he wants to...

i just read that thread and am now terrified to leave brewster alone because of how intellegent he is,but he keep anything he can choke or suffocate on up high in cabinets,the only thing he might get into his is tub of food in a lower cabinet but the is sealed and normaly filled with 10+lbs of food but that story is very sad and brewster is learning to open doors on his own :/

It was a terrible story, and I also hope we can prevent it from happening to any more dogs. One thing that Toby did as a young dog was open a lower cabinet and he and the other dogs ate everything that they could find in there. It was baking stuff, so they got into the flour and also some oatmeal. The three of them ate quite a bit of dry oatmeal, and by the time I got home, the oatmeal had run through all three of them quite unpleasantly. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever come home to--all three dogs had had serious diarrhea.

They say dogs can't tell what made them sick, but I will say none of them seemed remotely interested in oatmeal after that.